These comments are responses
to the statements listed below,
which were generated in regard to the Janice Urbanik Interview of 09-05-2014.

Can a cooperative regional
approach help to resolve the skills gap?

OVERVIEW

Janice Urbanik of Partners for a Competitive Workforce (PCW) in the
Greater Cincinnati region shares her organization's efforts to fill a
gap that also exists in the Twin Cities: employers have open jobs, but
can't find people with the right skills to fill them, despite the
existence of a sizeable pool of unemployed or
underemployed people. She asserts that this skills gap in Cincinnati's
tri-state region is limiting employers' ability to compete,
individual's ability to provide for their families and the region's
ability to grow existing companies and attract new ones.

Urbanik's partnership is a private-sector-led collaboration of 150
organizations that works: (1) to connect businesses that have existing
employment needs to qualified workers available right now; (2)
to build career pathways in the four targeted industries of health
care, manufacturing, construction and IT; and (3) to assure that
service providers all include in their programs training in core work
readiness competencies that employers have
identified as just as important as the technical skills needed for a
job. PCW has also started a Talent Pipeline initiative, which focuses
on giving STEM
experiences to students in the K-12 education system and professional
development on STEM careers to their
teachers.
Urbanik reports that since 2008: (1) PCW's partners have served over
7,800 adults, with 80 percent of them getting jobs and 73 percent
retaining those jobs for at least 12
months; (2) people who have gone through a PCW career pathway program
have a 40 percent higher employment rate
and up to 58 percent higher earnings than people in the region who've
gone through more traditional training programs; and (3) people who've
gone through a PCW pathway program earn an average of
$7,500 more per year than before, pumping an additional $7.3 million
into the regional
economy.
PCW, Urbanik notes, is currently putting together a plan to reach the
broad goal of 90 percent of the regional workforce being gainfully
employed and earning at least 200 percent of the federal poverty level
for a family of four.

Response Summary:Average
response ratings shown below are simply the mean of all readers’
zero-to-ten responses to the ideas proposed and should not be
considered an accurate reflection of a scientifically structured poll.

To assist the
Civic Caucus in planning upcoming interviews, readers rated these
statements about the topic on a scale of 0 (strongly disagree) to 5
(neutral) to 10 (strongly agree):

2. Further study
warranted. (7.5
average response) It would be
helpful to schedule additional interviews on this topic.

Readers rated
the following points discussed during the meeting on a scale of 0
(strongly disagree) to 5 (neutral) to 10 (strongly agree): Regional
cooperation preferred. (7.9
average response) Minnesota and
surrounding states would do better economically by mainly working
together rather than mainly competing against each other.

4. Establish a
regional job development effort. (7.1
average response) Employers in
Minnesota and neighboring states should establish a job development
enterprise similar to that operating in the tri-state (Ohio, Kentucky
and Indiana) Greater Cincinnati region.

5. Focus on
better training. (9.3
average response) With or without
interstate cooperation, Minnesota's economy would benefit greatly from
more emphasis on finding and training potential applicants for
hard-to-fill jobs.

6. Teach both
technical and "soft" skills. (9.1
average response) Minnesotans
should emulate the Cincinnati region's approach to workforce
preparation, which assigns equal priority to both technical skills and
"soft" skills, such as taking initiative, dependability, time
management, problem solving, writing, and dressing appropriately.

7. Establish
goals for metro citizens. (9.1
average response) Twin Cities
metro area should establish broad goals for education outcomes, health
care and income and make plans for how to meet the goals by 2020, as
the Cincinnati region has done.

1. Topic is of
value.
Very positive approach to regional cooperation and the role of private
sector as the leader vs. dependence on public sector.

2. Further study
warranted.
Recommend we find a strong Minnesota business public policy involved
person to reflect on how the private and public sectors work together
or do not in Minnesota today vs. 20 and 40 years ago. How can it be
fixed?

4. Establish a
regional job development effort.
This is only common sense but we rely too much on the public sector,
which is focused [on] competition rather than the private [sector],
which seems [an] overall strength.

5. Focus on
better training.
We keep talking, and correctly so, about filling hard-to-fill jobs.
Now let’s realize that there needs to also be attention to helping
business exist in Minnesota and to expand or begin. Just saying fill
the jobs without growth of existing business and creation of new jobs
is simply without thought. Why is the focus on filling jobs vs. new
and expanded business and then jobs?

6. Teach both
technical and "soft" skills.
Minnesota like all areas must do both, but before saying we need to do
this, do we know if this approach may already be in place in many
businesses? And when we say “Minnesota” should it sounds like the
government needs to do this? Why not a public/private partnership?

7. Establish
goals for metro citizens.
Once again we are referencing a regional influence but stating that
the Twin Cities must set goals, rather than Minnesota. Are we
Minnesota or are we the Twin Cities? Let’s have the public/private
partnerships solve this, not government and not public policy wonks,
[but] real working leaders.

Ray
Ayotte (5) (2.5) (7.5) (7.5) (10) (7.5) (5)

Don
Anderson (5) (5) (10) (5) (10) (10) (10)

4. Establish a
regional job development effort.
A job development enterprise between Wisconsin and Minnesota would be
feasible for the Twin Cities metropolitan region, as would an
enterprise between North Dakota and Minnesota in the Fargo-Moorhead
metropolitan area, but I don't know about including North Dakota and
South Dakota in a Twin Cities job development enterprise.

Vici
Oshiro (10) (7.5) (10) (7.5) (7.5) (10) (7.5)

7. Establish
goals for metro citizens.
As always, devil is in the details.

Larry Schluter (9) (8) (9) (7) (9) (9) (9)

Very interesting
discussion and would be a good approach to use here.

Tom
Spitznagle (8) (7) (4) (5) (9) (7) (10)

Based on all of
the issues identified in the interview it appears that too many
Americans at all levels are collectively shooting themselves and their
fellow citizens in the foot. How could Americans fall so far, so fast
in their handling of the fundamental building blocks for a successful
career, family and an overall prosperous society?

Wayne Jennings (9) (9) (10) (5) (10) (9) (10)

I
was stunned by the comments of parents’ disinterest in paid job
training for their children because of a mindset that only college is
right. We’ve gone too far with instilling the only-college goal for
students, which demeans many other worthy careers and furthers a kind
of classism. It says that somehow being a plumber or auto mechanic for
example is less than a worthwhile career. What have we done?

Mark
Ritchie (na) (na) (na) (na) (na) (na) (na)

Great outside
perspective. Thank you.

Mina
Harrigan (10) (10) (7) (7) (10) (10) (10)

Chuck Lutz (7) (6) (7) (9) (9) (8) (9)

The Civic Caucusis a non-partisan,
tax-exempt educational organization. The Interview Group
includes persons of varying political persuasions,
reflecting years of leadership in politics and
business. Click here to see a short personal background of each.